Friday, June 21, 2013

Revolutionary War Pension Files on Fold3.com

Revolutionary War pension files may provide extensive information for researching a 1790 U.S. Census head-of-household. The complete set of Revolutionary War pension files are available for searching and viewing on the subscription website Fold3.com. Alternately, one can request a print version of pension files from the National Archives (NARA). However, the printed copy from the National Archives may or may not be complete. In order to save time and expense in copying and shipping a complete copy NARA will copy selected pages from the pension file, and as a result significant information may be omitted. Access to the pension files on Fold3.com provides great benefit as these records contain the complete pension file.

Searching pension files on Fold3 can bear interesting and surprising results. Even if an ancestor did not apply for a Revolutionary War pension he may have provided written testimony about his service for another pension applicant. Some pension files may contain first-hand accounts of an ancestor’s service through letters or journals. The Revolutionary War journal of my fourth great-grandfather, Nathan Stickney, is included in his pension file. Nathan’s wife Mehitable (Burpee) Stickney submitted the journal as part of her application for his pension benefits after his death.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

New Hampshire State Papers

The New Hampshire State Papers, also known as Documents and Records Relating to New Hampshire, 1623-1800, are the single most important collection of New Hampshire documents from its inception through 1800. Included in the collection are probate records, court records, town papers, town charters, Masonian papers, and Revolutionary War muster rolls. The entire forty-volume collection, including an index, is online in PDF format on the New Hampshire Archives website at http://www.sos.nh.gov/archives/nhstatepapers.html.